Lab and pilot plant FAME production through enzyme-catalyzed reaction of low-cost feedstocks

Abstract

The current production of biodiesel is carried out chemically, using noble vegetable oils of high cost, with low content of water and free fatty acids (FFA). The reduction of the costs of the biodiesel chain necessarily requires the use of low-cost raw materials, which come from discards or industrial waste. In this context, this work reports the production of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) using residual raw materials from the soybean oil industry (low cost), containing high free fatty acids content (98.5% wt). For conversion, the enzymatic process was employed using the low cost commercially available lipase (Eversa® Transform 2.0) supplied by Novozymes (Denmark). The results optimized in the laboratory presented yields >96% of FAME, demonstrating the viability of the process. In this way a pilot scale experiment (1 m3) was performed, successfully reaching yield of >97% FAME. From the results obtained, the enzymatic process becomes a promising alternative for the production of biodiesel, due to the possibility of using raw materials of low cost, high content of FFA and of low quality, with favorable economic issues, renewability and benefits sustainable development.